Dell, the PC maker embroiled in a takeover battle between its founding CEO and activist investor Carl Icahn, reported a 72% slide in quarterly earnings as PC sales extended their downward spiral.Dell, which once led the world in computer sales and was held up as a model of production-chain innovation, is increasingly resorting to price cuts to soothe customers nervous about its future and to spearhead a late foray into the enterprise computing market.“It was predictably bad. It’s not a big surprise that margins compressed to the degree that they did, when they’re prioritising sales volume over profitability,” Morningstar analyst Carr Lanphier said. “You have to offset that uncertainty somehow.”Dell is the subject of a bitter contest over its future, with founder and CEO Michael Dell proposing a $25bn buyout to take the PC maker private, and Icahn leading shareholder opposition on the basis that the offer is too cheap.The dismal results could shore up the CEO’s argument that his $13.75-a-share offer, plus a 13-cent dividend, is a fair price for the world’s No 3 PC maker, which needs to undergo a serious overhaul out of the public investor spotlight.Analysts say Dell has had to aggressively cut prices to win over enterprise customers nervous about long-term contracts with a company in the middle of a complicated restructuring, and must compete in enterprise services with better-established rivals like Hewlett-Packard Co and IBM.Some have speculated that Dell, which has spent some $13bn in acquisitions since 2008 to expand into storage, software and networking, may reverse direction and unload assets as it continues to restructure the organisation.“They can’t compete on a level playing field when you have a wrestling match over the future of the company,” Lanphier said.The company in recent years has become one of the more prominent victims of PC market erosion from mobile devices, such as Apple’s iPad. Sales from Dell’s end-user computing division, which incorporates computers, slid 5% to $9.1bn.Its fortunes remain closely tied to PC sales, which still yield about half of revenue. Global sales of personal computers are expected to fall 7% this year and 4.5% next year, according to analysts at CLSA.For its fiscal second quarter, Dell reported sales of $14.5bn, flat from a year earlier and surpassing the $14.2bn analysts on average had expected.But net income fell sharply to $204mn or 12¢ a share, compared to $732mn or 42¢ a share in the year-earlier period. Excluding items, it earned 25¢ a share, barely edging past a 24¢ average forecast, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.Gross margins slid a percentage point from the previous quarter to 19.6%. More positively for Dell, sales from the enterprise solutions, services and software business climbed 9% to $5.8bn, reflecting an increased focus on investing in providing services to Corps and government agencies.Michael Dell wants to transform the company he founded in a company dorm room in 1984 into a complete provider of computing services like HP or IBM. And he wants to do it away from public market scrutiny, hence the take-private offer.But Dell’s rivals have had several years’ head-start, and it remains to be seen whether the new strategy of offering customers a hybrid of hardware, software and services will work, at a time more customers are moving into cloud-based systems.Dell CFO Brian Gladden reassured investors and customers that the company remains focused on effecting that transformation and serving its clients — a common message repeatedly stressed by senior executives as the buyout distraction continues.“While the environment continues to be challenging, we remain focused and dedicated to this objective,” Gladden said in a public letter published on Thursday.Bang & OlufsenDanish luxury electronics maker Bang & Olufsen reported a fourth-quarter pretax loss due to one-off costs and falling sales and predicted a difficult year ahead.Bang & Olufsen, which issued two profit warnings during the 2012/13 financial year, predicted its operating margin will rise from a loss to the break-even level in the year ahead as it restructured, terminating a number of older products.“Continued challenging market conditions in Europe are likely to have a negative impact on consumer confidence and continue to create headwind for the overall AV market in the 2013/14 financial year,” the group said yesterday.For the full year, the company posted a net loss of 160mn Danish crowns ($28.43mn), its third annual net loss in the past five years.It reported a pretax loss of 45mn Danish crowns ($8mn) in the fourth quarter against a 77mn crowns profit a year earlier and compared with an average 43mn loss forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts.For the financial year ahead, which runs from June to May, B&O expects revenue “moderately above the level of the 2012/13 financial year”. The group sees a “significant improvement” in the operating margin from a loss to near the break-even level due to lower capacity costs.Revenue for the financial year 2012/13 amounted to 2.81bn crowns just within B&O’s guidance range of between 2.80bn and 2.90bn crowns given in March.The full-year operating loss landed at 188mn crowns against a guidance of a loss of between 150mn and 200mn crowns.The group kept its long-term ambition of reaching revenue of 8bn to 10bn Danish crowns, a goal that many analysts doubt will be fulfilled.